DS450's at Unadilla...

[400exrider707]

They seemed pretty quick, Lawson took first place in moto #1 on his machine and he had a very good lead going, but the interesting story came on moto #2...

The rain hit hard and the track was a muddy mess. Nearly every can-am out on the field started smoking immensely, and all of them smelled like burning anti-freeze when they drove by. Now obviously the conditions played into this... plugged radiators with the mud and the constant wheel spinning without as much forward movement, but the can-ams were the only quads smoking out there. I think I saw one Honda slightly smoking, but every single pro can-am was smoking bad. At one point a can-am rider stalled on the last lap after making contact with another rider. He tried restarting which took about 15 seconds and when it fired up blue smoke poured out of the exhaust.

Is this something that is common among the can-ams? They looked rather impressive on the track, other than these problems. I know the conditions aided in this, but they were the only quads out there smoking like this. They all finished the race, but they were all smoking like this by about the half way point. Any thoughts?

[Pappy]

They dont like to run hot, the gncc boys know all about this and the mx guys got to see what the mud does to them at the last 2 rounds!

[Drewltr450]

yea they defffinetly dont like to run hot. i dont remember were but i saw a picture of some can-am race bikes and they had cut the bumper in half had fins and an oversized radiator on there bike. it was qwight a site to see.

[Drewltr450]

it miht not be a bumper cut in half but is deffinetly small.

[Flynbryan19]

Its really quite simple. The people that designed the ds450 had a MAJOR brain fart and designed the radiator in front of the frame rails. If they would have spent any of their R&D time thinking about how this would affect the machine during race conditions it would have been obvious to them that it would never work.

Its really a shame too. I LOVE the looks of the machine. It just sucks that they can only do good in dry conditions. At the last GNCC it was actually dry for a change and they had their best finish of the year. Coincidence? I think not.

[400exrider707]

I had heard this before, but got to see it first hand at unadilla. I wouldn't be surprised if someone figures out a way to mount the radiator somewhere else.

[ds450racer]

weve had some REALLY wet races over here and the bike have been running fine. No smoke, just keeps going like usual.

[Flynbryan19]

Originally posted by ds450racer
weve had some REALLY wet races over here and the bike have been running fine. No smoke, just keeps going like usual.

Go enter a 2hr gncc race and see how it does.

I also wonder if the pro gncc guys are trying to coax too much hp out of them at the sacrifice of reliability. I would think this far into the series though if that were the case they would have learned from their lesson. I do know they need to change their track record or else you will not see anyone on a DS at a GNCC unless they're sponsored by them. No one wants a quad that can't even finish a race.

[mike_1985]

I dont know how them guys run their ds but mine gets ridden hard for 2 hours on track then i drive it home full thortlle for another hour and it never gave me no problems . Also now i done 1500miles its finally faster than the raptor 700 , wheelies like a dream and jumps like no other . It finally has the same top speed as the 700 . I really dont know why those guys have so many problems mine just gets better and better

[ThePhantomRider]

Here's the real deal on the DS' "smoking" issues....

Now I will not refute the observation made about the one that stalled and when started puffed blue smoke that probably did happen and can happen.

Here's the deal, when the DS gets heated up under racing conditions, and especially when you get mud caked up in the radiator, it will run hot....not failure hot, but hot enough to cause the overflow bottle to start to spit coolant out, and where does it go???? Right on to the head. 99% of the steam or "smoke" you actually see is just that, steam from the overflow squirtin the motor. Now this does look bad and perhaps they need to address this aesthetically, but the last time one of race motors did that, they pulled it apart after the race and verified nothing was wrong with the motor, just excess coolant spraying the head.

Again, not sayin the DS is failureproof, but there is a valid explanation to most of the "smoking motors" people have seen.


TPR